Incyte and Lexicon form drug discovery alliance

Incyte Genomics and Lexicon Genetics have announced a majorcollaboration, which the firms say is "designed to leverage the respective technology and intellectual property assets of both companies to accelerate the development of therapeutic protein drug products." The alliance will consist of four major components: a therapeutic protein drug discovery alliance; the co-promotion by Incyte of Lexicon's LexVision database to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies; access for Incyte to the latter; and Lexicon gaining access to Incyte's LifeSeq Gold database.

Arthur Sands, Lexicon's chief executive, said that by building upon Incyte's composition of matter patent rights with his firm's knowledge of in vivo gene function for the discovery of therapeutic utility, "both companies are primed to build a significant pipeline of therapeutic protein products." His counterpart at Incyte, Roy Whitfield, said that the alliance "positions Incyte to actively participate in extracting untapped medical value from our extensive gene transcript databases and intellectual property."